Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

JAMYANG KYENTSÉ WANGPO
There is little debate concerning the identity of the greatest
master of the last century: then and now, meditation masters,
scholars, and ordinary practitioners concur that it was Kyentsé Wangpo.
We have only to read Kongtrul’s introduction to Kyentsé’s songs he chose
to include in this collection to hear his informed opinion, loud and clear:
During the extreme degeneration that marks this time of conflict,
this master’s life is as rare and as very significant as [the blossoming
of] an udumvara flower. A wondrous, supreme manifestation
of enlightenment, masterful lord of the seven transmissions, his
outstanding, unparalleled life of freedom made him renowned
throughout the horizon of the Himalayas by the name of Jamyang
Kyentsé Wangpo.
Kongtrul repeats such praises in many of his writings and throughout
the biography of his master and friend, written a few years after Kyentsé’s
death.
Jamyang Kyentsé Wangpo (1820–1892) was born in eastern Tibet as a
Sakya reincarnate master, but his influence covered the Himalayan region
and permeated every lineage. He received every lineage’s teachings, understood
them, reflected upon them, practiced them, gained visions and other
signs of accomplishment, and passed them on better and more vital than
he had found them. The wealth of over a thousand years of Tibetan spiritual
life passed through his hands. In an acknowledgment of that, which
is surprising given the context, Kongtrul here mentions part of Kyentsé’s
activity that had no relation to the Shangpa teachings: He informs us that
Kyentsé is the “masterful lord of the seven transmissions,” the seven ways
treasure revealers can receive the instructions of Guru Rinpoché: the
Canon, earth treasures, re-revealed treasures, mind treasures, recollected
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